Croatia coach Zlatko Kranjcar has thanked Australia for showing him the way to prepare his team for their meeting with Japan.

The Socceroos hit three goals in the final few minutes to see off the Blue Samurai 3-1 in their opening game, with Kranjcar an interested spectator.

He said: "I saw the game and saw the mistakes Japan made in the last ten minutes.

"We look forward to taking advantage of them even earlier than Australia did.

"We said before it will be the key game in the group.

"We don't have to change anything. We had a lot of chances against Brazil, but simply didn't put them away."